A Downward Spiral

Here is my latest update on Jose. I wish I had better news to share.

The morning of our trip to Philly, the school leaders surprised me by not allowing Jose to join us. He was crushed. He worked hard through his entire suspension just to be able to go on to Philly and stay a part of our group. He felt betrayed by the school leaders, and ended up flipping over desks in an emotional outburst, and declaring “I’m through with this school!”

As Jose’s social worker, I understood the context of his extreme reaction and the anger he felt. This is a kid who is on the brink of failure in school and isolation from mainstream society. Success in school is truly his key to a better life. He made some missteps this year, but, remained focused academically. To be, in his view, betrayed despite his efforts, was too much to bear emotionally.

Jose’s world is also tied indelibly to the streets. He has had exposure to gangs, and according to their “rules”, betraying the gang results in being killed. It’s a purely black and white scenario, with no room for moderation. Once a person betrays you, he no longer exists in your world. In that vein, the school was “dead” to Jose.

What he did next however was not something I would have predicted. The weekend following his outburst at school, he and a friend robbed a man and were arrested. Jose's actions signified a rebellious disavowal of everything school stands for and a lack of hope for his future.

I ask myself if I could have done more. I don’t know the answer. I am his social worker but not his parent or guardian, and those are the people he really needs to help make the right decisions for him, especially when he is outside of school.

I’ve obviously scaled back my expectations for Jose, but, I have not written him off. My focus now is on getting him back into school and into our group, and to try to rebuild his trust for the school leaders, myself and my team of social workers.

Reverting, Re-entering, Progressing

I’m worried – but still hopeful – about Jose. His in-school suspension turned into an out-of school suspension after he got into a fight with another student who was distracting him while he was trying to do his school work. There are two ways I view what happened. On the one hand, that Jose would actually be focusing on doing school work after getting suspended is a total 360 from last year. On the other hand, he reverted to his old behavior by letting the situation with the other student escalate into a physical fight.

Students on out-of-school suspensions are sent to Alternative Learning Centers (ALC). In Jose’s case he had a seven day suspension at an ALC. I worried a lot about him during this time, specifically that the ALC environment might provoke him to revert even further to his old aggressive and erratic behavior. While some ALCs are well managed and orderly, (and Partnership with Children works in several of these), others are mayhem. Unfortunately, Jose was in a more chaotic ALC.

The situation at the ALC was out of my control however. As a social worker I sometimes find myself in a circumstance where I have to accept that I can not control the situation or make it better in the future. In this case, I knew all I could do was plan to make Jose’s re-entry to our school smooth and to make sure he did not have any lingering anger issues from the suspension.

Bottom line, I want to see Jose succeed. We provide a supportive environment in our PACE group (for students that have been held back), but Jose has to eventually learn to handle himself without our support. Maybe I was swayed by the impressive advances he’s made in class and with his peers, and I lost sight of the fact that he is still a teenager working through his emotions and learning to control his behavior. How much can I expect him to grow in just a few months? I have to continue to praise and support him but also check my expectations.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Jose, our self-proclaimed valedictorian, who has shown so much growth this year, academically and emotionally, got suspended this week. He got a 5 day in-school suspension for being rude to a teacher and walking out of school. At first I was shocked, but I knew he would stumble at some point.

When I walked into the suspension room, or Accountability Studio as they call it, he was in the corner doing work. Normally suspended students run amok in the Studio, so, to see him working quietly in the corner showed me that he realizes he made a mistake, and he doesn’t want to fall behind in school.

This past week I dealt with more crisis than usual overall, and I think it has to do with the Thanksgiving holiday. For a lot of the children we work with, the holidays bring up all the tension, insecurity and anger they try to suppress. The holidays are stressful for kids in broken homes, living in poverty, or dealing with any types of issues with their families. This week that a lot of kids were on edge emotionally – even the smallest event could set them off. One girl had her hair pulled and ended up weeping in our office for an hour. On any regular weekday, she would have gotten over the situation a lot faster and with less emotion.

I also noticed this week that Jose was wearing a button of his uncle who was in a Puerto Rican motorcycle gang, and was killed. He used to wear the button last year, but stopped since September. I’m not sure why Jose started wearing it again this week, but I think perhaps it’s because of the holiday. He’s still not living with his mother, and this family-centered holiday must be difficult for him. His uncle is a male role model –albeit a negative one – and maybe he needs the thought of a male figure to help him get through the holidays without his mom, or dad.